The bite of a jaguar

Dear future me,

As I was heading for Brazil, I realized this was going to be my last loop. Probably the ultimate tour on my beloved bike as I put her for sale on Facebook. Strangely enough I am not really happy when someone responds to it and so far, no new buddy has been found for her. Yet. Meanwhile, I fully engage to the advice that longtime traveler Pete has given me: keep on doing what you doing and don’t think of the end date. Well, that is my specialization, I happen to be very good in not thinking about later. But my intuition says this is my farewell tour. Again. I’ve been here before, in 2014 when I rode to Florida completely sure I would sell the bike. One last tour through Florida would be the end of it.

So 10 years later I was heading for Brazil via Pedro Juan Caballero. Getting some new rubber on the wheels, I stayed for an extra day and visited the nearby Cerro Corá National Park, thinking to spend some time walking on mountainous hills. Instead I found myself learning everything about the last battle of Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina ánd Uruguay. Wow, Paraguay really messed up to have so many (giant) enemies! And I was about to enter one of these enemies when I crossed the border. Or should I say, when I crossed the street to Ponta Porã? Because in this part you have to fend for yourself if you want to have a stamp in your passport or an official document that you temporarily import a bike. I had to get to 4 different building, spread out in both cities. When I was finally done, some nice backroads took me north to the Mato Grosso and the Pantanal. I heard great stories about the village Bonito and its water adventures, so I got myself into vacation mode. Splashing in nicely warmed up Rio de Plata, breathing through a tube and wearing funny underwater see-through glasses, I was one with all the big and small fishes around me. Swimming is hardly required as the flow takes you down the river, following other people with tubes and see-through glasses. Occasionally a guy with a professional underwater camera came into sight, but it is pretty hard to smile with (or without) a tube in your mouth. After this snorkeling floatation tour, I went on a waterfall splashing tour the next day. Both tours have a lot in common: they are very well organized by privately owned ranches who not only provide you with a very good tour, but are also nice relaxed places to hang out and enjoy great breakfasts and lunches. Yes, I finally found a country where they take their breakfasts seriously. I didn’t even need wetsuits to float in the river, all my body fat from the bread, pies, cakes and pastries would keep me afloat anyway. And both tours are very relaxed and involve a lot of water. Although my second tour, Boca da Onca, had a nasty bite in the end. The jaguar (Onca) who hides in the waterfall, bites hard with his mouth (Boca) when he drives you up 886 steps on a steep stairway to heaven.

From this heaven I proceeded my farewell tour to the next heaven, called Florianopolis. To get there however I had to conquer two elements: 1) the distance and 2) the weather. First, I had to make my way to Curitiba to get closer to the coast. There would I wait for the weather change from rain to sun before I would hit the coast and beaches of Ihla de Santa Catarina (Florianopolis). It took me three days in hilly agricultural Brazil to find Curitiba, the capital of de state Paraná. Thankfully in one piece, because a truck tried to test how much space I actually need on a road and pushed me to the limits of it. Of all the countries I visited in South America, I ended up in the one where people have too much macho genes in their DNA, and want to mark their territory and show how fast they can go. It is really crazy. But again, so far, I did survive Brazilian road madness and I entered Curitiba just when the sun decided to have a long siesta behind the rainy clouds. Excellent time to do some cultural stuff. Visiting the botanic garden that still looks beautiful in the hazy shades of dark grey clouds. And paying a call to the Museum of Oscar Niemeyer to not only admire his work of art as an architect, bus also many statues from Africa and Asia. It did get me in the mood for my next solo travel in another 10 years. To reach all these cultural goodies, I used my own legs to get myself around. Ideal to see the beauty of this modern city and to see the downside of it with its many homeless or homewrecked people. It is also my way of taking some slow time to try to get rid of my respiratory infection that I developed by all the bad stuff that is coming into my lungs lately. Unfortunately I just can’t sit still. So my next move was to get myself to the beach for some real down time.

Via Blumenau and its German Biergartens I got to Greece as Florianopolis constantly reminds me of the Acropolis somehow. They have nothing to do with each other though, because Florianopolis is a very modern tower invested coastal urban pearl where everybody goes to for nice beach parties and cocktails. This area brought me back to Florida where on my last tour I visited this superb hostel near the Florida Keys and had such a good time. As history repeats itself, I found myself in an equally superb hostel on the island near two big lakes. And equally great people who gave me such a warm welcome. All I had to do was to get up in the morning while the sun was up in the sky at 27 Celsius, do some hiking on trails with (no) views on the lakes and to enjoy a few beers in company while sunbathing on the beach of Mole or melting marshmallows on the campfire. I was not the only one to get lazy, my rear tire decided that it wanted to lay down too and laid all his rubber on the ground. Which meant I had to stay an extra day to change the air valve and repump my tire to get my bike ready for the way back to Paraguay. Because that’s where I’m heading now. With a lot of lead in my motorboots (Dutch expression) I’m slowly making some miles towards the Paraguayan frontier. What’s next? I don’t know, I keep myself oblivious of the future. But by the time I will write the next blog, I will have an answer to that question. I think.

See ya later,

Annemieke